Just a quick request for info from anyone who knows a little about this fairly uncommon instrument.
I’ve found a couple in charity shops over the years- while they’re in the fipple flute class, they don’t look much like tin-whistle/recorders because the fipple is beneath the body of the instrument and is formed from a ring of wood/bamboo simply slipped over the blowing end of the instrument.
They have an exceptionally sweet tone, possibly because the bore is relatively wide in comparison to the length of the instrument (much more so than the tin-whistle).
I’ve been making a similar instrument out of plastic pipe and find that the tone is very nice indeed, though seemingly by sacrificing a useable second octave.
Here’s a link to a page with a short section on the suling and a photo (though not a particularly good one in terms of seeing the construction of the flute)-
http://www.rasabali.com/bali-articles/the-construction-and-tuning-of-bali-instruments-44.shtml
and here’s the text from it-
“Balinese suling (flutes) ate universally made of bamboo. They are end blown from a nodal point in the tube, with a little hole cut in to allow the breath to pass through the resonating chamber. Fingering holes are bored along the length of the instrument. The husky suling gambuh is the longest, with all sizes available down to a piercing little one that can be heard through the texture of the loudest orchestral passages. Suling are always played with circular breathing, a difficult technique whereby the flutist exhales air stored in the cheeks while inhaling through the nose. This makes it possible for the flute to sound continuously.”
the circular breathing is news to me, though, as I play didj and can circular breathe on that, I’ll give it a go on the suling.
Any more info on the suling would be much appreciated.